Thursday, March 25, 2010

[Our friend and powerful Cameroonian rabbi, Charles Onana, whose DUBOIRIS editions were the principal sources of CM/P's early formation in African issues, especially those concerning Rwanda and Congo, has had to step up and defend his friend and colleague, Déo Mushayidi, from the global rampage of the criminal maniacs in Kigali.

As the truth of what has really been happening in Rwanda and Congo since the early 1990s becomes more widely known—and even more undeniable—, as the international criminal warrants begin to pile up on the Rwandan president's desk, as the Western forces for violent regime change begin to sight-in on some of their old road dogs: bloody Anglo-Saxon-sponsored fascists, like Mikheil Saakhasvili, Yoweri Museveni, Pal Joey Kabila and Pontius Pilate Paul Kagame, begin frantically striking out in all directions to wreak as much havoc, to spill as much innocent blood, to ratchet up terror to the max in hopes of escaping the fates they exacted on the victims whose corpses they elevated themselves upon.

The distinction between Hutu and Tutsi has always been a pure social construct and political instrument, with its tribal antecedents serving merely to obfuscate reason and color political expediency with the hues of savage ethnic blood feuds.

The victimization unto extermination of Rwandans and Congolese has always been quite cynically ecumenical. The case of Tutsi journalist/activist Déo Mushayidi, his recent arrest in Tanzania and 'transfer' (a euphemism for illegal extradition à la Milosevic) to a Kigali court, brought forth this appeal for justice and decency from Charles Onana, one of the most respected (and rightfully feared by the bad guys) investigative journalists in practice today.

For us here at CM/P, it is the greatest honor to render his essential criticism in our special brand of English. –mc]

*************************************

The Exclusive Testimony of Charles Onana on the Case of Déo Mushayidi(24 March 2010)

My Tutsi friend is in the hands of Africa’s Murder Inc.

Who will stop the criminal cartel that is currently running wild in Kigali? Who will bring an end to the grisly martyrdom of the Tutsi, Hutu and Congolese? Who will find justice for the French, Spanish and Canadians felled by the bullets and missiles of the assassins who seized state power in Rwanda by force of arms in 1994?

For the moment, all is silence. Maybe an uncomfortable silence—but silence nonetheless! Faced with the growing murderousness of the Rwandan authorities, faced with the torrent of Rwandan soldiers and diplomats fleeing into other countries, faced with ever more persecutions of political opponents, faced with arbitrary arrests of Rwandan citizens at home and abroad: the Western powers that support the Kigali regime are keeping their heads down. Yet the lives of many Rwandans, inside and outside the country, are now being threatened more than ever—regardless of whether they are Tutsi or Hutu. Not since the days of the one-party states has Africa experienced such a savage and ruthless dictatorship as the one in Kigali today. This unsustainable situation is unbearable for the victims of the Rwandan tragedy of 1994.

My friend and colleague Déo Mushayidi is one such victim. In the past, he was a member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Today, he is the RPF’s prey. Before, it was the ‘Extremist Hutu’ who slaughtered his family; today, it is the ruling Tutsi Extremists who are plotting his death. Given the gravity of the situation, I cannot just sit on my hands. By writing this now, I mean to support my friend, who has been kidnapped and is about to face a firing squad.

Two weeks ago Déo Mushayidi was arrested in Tanzania and transported to Kigali, Africa’s new capital of state-sanctioned crime. I did not react right away. I wanted to know exactly what he had done and what he was being accused of. After several days, the Kagame regime spat out its venom, accusing Déo Mushayidi of “endangering state security.” This was the charge made against him at his first appearance before a Kigali judge. Then, the indictment metastasized with other charges: “disturbing the peace, forgery, associating with a terrorist group, genocide revisionism and divisionism.” Déo Mushayidi, a Tutsi victim, should not have expected less from these self-appointed spokespeople for the Tutsi. The Rwandan hills are alive with such mountebanks.

What were the circumstances of Déo Mushayidi’s arrest? Who handed down the order to send him to Kigali? Under what international convention was he handed over to Rwandan authorities, or—more exactly—to Paul Kagame?

The minimum that can be said is that nothing is clear in this case. But the highly political decision to send Déo Mushayidi to Rwanda is very much a call by the current Kigali regime for the murder of exiled Rwandan political opponents. This initiative placed in particular jeopardy all those Tutsi who refuse to submit to the bloody authoritarianism of President Paul Kagame.

After actively campaigning for the RPF in Switzerland during the 1990s, my friend Mushayidi indeed became an opponent of the Kagame regime. Until 1994, before Kagame and the RPF had seized state power, Mushayidi was the Front’s representative in Geneva. Upon his arrival in Kigali, he was one of the first Tutsi to understand the reality of this new Rwandan government.

I first met Déo Mushayidi in Washington, DC, in 1999. Careful, measured and critical, he is a professional journalist and an open-minded individual. At the time, he was running a newspaper in Kigali and chairing the Rwandan Journalists Association.

One evening in my Washington hotel room, Déo Mushayidi warned me against the image of Paul Kagame and his regime being presented in the Western media. He knew a lot about this since he had worked with Kagame and seen just what he was capable of. I was in the midst of my investigation of Kagame’s role in the terrorist attack of 6 April 1994 against the plane of the sitting Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana—an international crime against the peace in which the Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, and the entire French (civilian) flight crew were also killed. Déo Mushayidi had agreed to cooperate in my investigation despite the great risks he’d be running in Kigali. In the course of a dinner in the US he told me at length about the crimes committed by the Tutsi ‘rebels’ during their taking of Kigali and the mass killings of Hutu in 1995, 1996, and 1997. He had also reported on a plan to murder the former president of the Rwandan parliament, Joseph Sebarenzi, a Tutsi, who fought against the arbitrariness of the Rwandan legislature. “Kagame told me he wanted Sebarenzi dead. Because he feared that the speaker of the parliament, widely respected, would overshadow him.” Joseph Sebarenzi fled Rwanda and is now in exile in the United States.

Déo Mushayidi told me of other schemes to murder members of the opposition, like the Tutsi journalist Jean Pierre Mugabe, another refugee in the US today, with whom I had discussed a great deal concerning the history of the terrorist attack of 6 April and the violent methods favored by Paul Kagame. Déo also spoke to me of assassination threats against him. He was calm but concerned. We have stayed in touch, and I have tried to encourage him as much as I can. The atmosphere in Rwanda was ghastly and remains so.

One day the following year, in March 2000, my phone rang. It was Déo calling from the French Embassy in Kigali. With a steady but anxious voice, he said he was in danger. “Do not worry,” he assured. “A French friend has made arrangements to get me to Europe. I gave him your number in case I need something. As soon as I arrive in Europe, I’ll call you,” he concluded. I was indeed reassured to know my friend was in the French Embassy. It was, at that time, the safest place for him. The following days were difficult because I did not know if Déo Mushayidi would be able to get out of Kigali unmolested. But a week later I received another call. It was Déo again. He had finally arrived in Europe and was far from Kagame’s henchmen. I was delighted that my friend was out of danger.

I tell this story today because I think my friend has been delivered into the hands of those who tried to murder him in 2000. Were all these efforts to get him out of Kigali in vain? Could the French official who saved Déo from his executioners get the ear of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, or President Nicolas Sarkozy, both of whom are well known to be very fond of Paul Kagame? For my part, I thank the French for prolonging Déo Mushayidi’s life and allowing him to fight for Truth and Justice in his country for another ten years. During my 2002 trial in Paris on charges brought against me by Paul Kagame for our book on the terrorist attack of 6 April 1994, Déo Mushayidi came out to support me. He has always supported me against the many attacks of which I was the object for having dared to shine a light on the crimes Kagame committed against the Hutu, Tutsi and Congolese. When he became a refugee in Belgium in 2000, he got out of journalism to be able to continue his political struggles. He still advocates for fairness and justice to all victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (Hutu and Tutsi, alike). In 2008 he joined with former Rwandan Defense Minister, General Emmanuel Habyarimana, once a collaborator of Paul Kagame’s now living in exile in Switzerland, to publish a memorandum that was sent to the UN Security Council. That memo was extensively documented (including many highly classified documents) and explained Paul Kagame’s involvement in the plundering of resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the terrorist assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, and many other crimes. Déo Mushayidi has always advocated for peace and reconciliation among Rwandans—an approach the current government of Rwanda completely rejects.

In the past, Paul Kagame accused the Hutu of having “planned a genocide” against the Tutsi. Now, the same Kagame regime accuses my Tutsi friend of terrorism and denial of the “Tutsi genocide.” However, Déo Mushayidi has never carried a Kalashnikov as has Paul Kagame, he’s never shot down a president’s plane as has Paul Kagame, he’s never killed his own staff as has Paul Kagame, he’s never killed either Hutu or Tutsi as has Paul Kagame, he’s never advocated discrimination against Rwandan citizens as does Paul Kagame. He’s never invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and butchered millions of Congolese as Paul Kagame’s military continues to do. He’s never plundered the DRC as Paul Kagame has for the last nearly thirteen years. Yet, it is Déo Mushayidi who is now in the dock—or should I say, on death row—in Kigali.

And I was struck with a curious hopefulness by the singular lack of enthusiasm shown by the international media in reporting the case of Déo Mushayidi. I’m especially surprised by the pall of silence hanging over Belgium, the country that welcomed my friend and gave him political asylum. And it was thought-provoking to see how little was made of his case by the Human Rights community, which is usually very quick to execute the orders of the Kagame regime by going after so-called ‘Hutu Genocidaires.’ Are they, perhaps, confusing my Tutsi friend with some poor Hutu who deserves to disappear behind jailhouse walls, as did former Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu, in order to protect the criminal syndicate currently in power in Kigali? Do they also see Déo Mushayidi as a ‘genocidaire’ or a ‘divisionist’ and a ‘revisionist’? Since the regime said he was all those things and a ‘terrorist’ to boot, maybe there are still some brain-donors out there who believe it. The reality is that my friend is paying for his involvement in my investigation of the terrorist attack on 6 April 1994, for his investigative work that led to the memorandum of 2008, and for his public positions as a Tutsi victim and a former member of the RPF working against the Kagame regime. The charges by the Rwandan military dictatorship against Déo Mushayidi are simply arbitrary and capricious fabrications.

Given the weak consensus within the European Union, the principal contributor of public funds to the repressive autocracy in Kigali, I would like to think that my friend will not remain for long in the hands of Africa’s Murder Inc., which is currently ravaging Rwanda and the DRC.

[Here’s one for the CM/P Seminar: Movies & The (un)Making-of History. Except that “D’Arusha à Arusha” is a documentary and the Seminar has always stayed away from documentaries because that genre of film is intended to write or rewrite History, and its techniques for subverting Expectations and recontorting the Obvious are more overt and less suggestive. Yet no one can deny the artistry of, say, “Darwin’s Nightmare” in advertising itself as an environmental testament to the misapplication of scientific fish-farming, while actually presenting a severe geopolitical indictment of the First World for its criminal (militaristic) wastage of Central African reproduction.

What makes Christophe GARGOT’s 2009 documentary, “D’Arusha à Arusha,” unique is that it seems to present a very convincing, however tangential, prima facie argument for a version of History that is completely contrary to the version it is advocating. In presenting the ICTR as an independent instrument of International Justice—and a force against impunity and for the rights of victims—the film begins by telling us that of the 78 defendants tried, all have been Hutus connected to the former Habyarimana government or the Interim government that succeeded it. Then questions are raised: questions about the number and ethnic origins of the genocide victims, questions as to the role of ethnic (tribal) conflict and the ‘Hate Speech’ it spawned, questions as to the real independence of the Tribunal, questions as to the Tribunals authority in pursuing the assassins of two African heads of state, even questions on the legal veracity of the genocide, itself—all these highly pertinent questions are posed, but none is answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Yet even a moderately informed viewer cannot help but feel the overwhelming weight of the evidence presented in this film falls on the side of the Defense—and that this Tribunal, like its Yugoslav twin in The Hague, is really a continuation of the war in Rwanda, even an extension of the Rwandan genocide, through the maintenance of a false history in the interests of Western (NATO/AFRICOM) militarism. It certainly presents a massive obstruction to peace and reconciliation in the country.

In email correspondence, the filmmaker has assured me that his only goal was to strike a balance between the two sides in the Rwandan troubles: the Hutu and the Tutsi, or Habyarimana’s persecuted, displaced and assassinated government and Kagame’s militarily dictatorial, murderously repressive and criminally expansionist government, or the US/UK/Israel and the people of Central Africa. This is the sort of Existentialist experiment in equivocation that even the Nazi ‘guest worker’ J-P Sartre couldn’t pull off: though the universal inevitability of death may give the (Fascist) assassin and his (Communist) victim a certain existential equivalence, certainly no one in good conscience could strike any kind of moral parity between mass murderers and their victims. Anti-communists (or Fascists, as we like to distinguish them) have used this ploy for more than 60 years to expiate the horrendous crimes in their attempted destruction of popular democracies throughout the USSR and People’s China—most famously by Hannah Arendt (‘Heidegger’s ‘ho’’) when she equated Soviet and Chinese Communism with German, Italian and Japanese Fascism, lumping them all together into one big, evil authoritarianism. But this neutralization of the dialectical tension between Communism (anti-Fascism) and Fascism (anti-Communism) serves only to relieve Fascism of its responsibility for the primal Crimes Against the Peace it committed in its unprovoked military aggressions against the Popular Governments of Europe and Asia.

And I suppose it is the very impossibility of his intentions, to deal even-handedly with the génocidaires and the génocidées, that makes GARGOT’s documentary so important, not only to the History of Central Africa, but also to the History of International Criminal Justice. Unable to lay hands on a DVD, I was forced to view the film in three screening here in Paris, and during my third viewing I took notes (by the light of my iPhone) so as to sketch out a ROUGH scenario on which to add CM/P’s ALTERNATIVE NARRATION.

We use CAPS {perhaps TOO often} to give a Sid Fields smell to the script, and EDITORIAL comments are contained within one or more sets of {[brackets]}.

As with many such endeavors, “D’Arusha à Arusha”—the title is an allusion to “De Nuremberg à Nuremberg,” though no serious parallels between the two US-sponsored War Crimes Tribunals are drawn, and any comparisons of the Rwandan Genocide to The Holocaust of European Jews are properly dismissed—is defined more by what it does not say than by what it does say. The Situationist Anxiety over this unknown absence is never greater than at the end of the film when Col. BAGOSORA’s conviction and life sentence are announced. Mr. GARGO & Co. make no mention of the monumental judicial decision to acquit all the Defendants in the Military I Trial of Planning Genocide or Conspiring to Commit Genocide. This ruling calls the genocide, itself, into question. [When I mentioned this omission to Mr. GARGOT, he seemed to be completely unaware of this DETAIL .]

So, without endorsing the film, let this RECONSIDERATION of “D’Arusha à Arusha” serve as a positive recommendation of its ‘Negative Capability’ (see Keats’ aesthetic of character and genius) in presenting what is surely a most informative (un)Making-Of History. Bon film! –mc]

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D’Arusha à Arushaa documentary by Christophe GARGOT

(Notes from the 27 February 2010 screening at the Cinéma L’Entrepot in Paris, 15e)

UP ON: title: ATOPIC

CUT TO:

EXT. MURAMBI—DAY

A lot of people walking to the MURAMBI MEMORIAL. There is AMBIENT SOUND, but we are struck by how SILENT the PEOPLE are.

HEAVY SILENCE

CUT TO:

INT. MEMORIAL—DAY

The BLEACHED REMAINS of dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of VICTIMS. The VISITORS, all AFRICANS, look on, not just in SILENCE, but WITHOUT DISCERNABLE EXPRESSION.

[One has to wonder if this is the way the remains of loved ones, parents and grand-parents and little kids, should be displayed if the purpose is remembrance. Like the Khmer Rouges’ bleached skulls, one gets the idea the purpose here is to instill terror in the viewers.]

He explains that 78 INDIVIDUALS have been tried before the ICTR, and EXCEPT FOR ONE BELGIAN [Georges RUGGIU, to appear later], ALL 78 have been HUTU. He says this is INTERESTING considering the Tribunal is supposed to adjudicate ALL MAJOR CRIMES including GENOCIDE committed in RWANDA between 1 January and 31 December 1994.

[Prof. Peter ERLINDER can be seen behind CONSTANT playing Donkey Kong on his computer—one of a couple silent bits Prof Erlinder pulls off very well—actually, he makes the picture!]

CUT TO:

EXT. RWANDA—DAY

A LITTLE HOUSE WITH A COUPLE TREES AROUND IT

This is the HOUSE OF JEAN DE DIEU [JdD].

CUT TO:

INT. JEAN DE DIEU’S HOUSE—DAY

ON: JdD sitting in a chair watching something OC Right.

He’s very calm, serene even. He admits to taking part in the genocide, but says he was following the orders of the Rwandan (Habyarimana/MRND) government authorities. He was a functionary in the Education Ministry, I think, and at first he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. But then religion and prison convinced him he was a genocidaire—that he had, as he puts it, committed some ‘betises’—[a French way of saying ‘minor fuck ups.’]

* And he explains how, according to the 1991 census the Rwandan population of8.5 million was 10% Tutsis. So if the popular body count of 800k were appliedthat would leave few if any Tutsis in Rwanda. [All Stam and Davenport stuff.]

[[[A SAMPLE OF THE REAL NUMBERS GAME[1]:

In the book they co-edited, “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” R. BOUHLAL (President of MRAX) and P. KALISA (President of BUKA), both militant anti-racists, work the numbers of Tutsi victims to shock and play to the emotions of the reader.

In the Introduction to the book, they state a number of victims:

“More than one million Tutsis were exterminated by the Rwandan ‘Hutu Power’regime.”

This example shows the willful exaggeration that runs throughout the book.

Why maximize the number of victims? In 1991, the general census of the population by household conducted by the Rwandan government, in cooperation with the UNDP and UNFPA, estimated the population of Rwanda at 7,164,994, made up of 6,527,309 Hutu (91.1%), 601,859 Tutsi (8.4%), 29,660 Twa (0.4%), and 7,165 Others (0.1%).

In his book, “Rwanda - Contre-enquête sur le génocide,” (Editions Privat, Feb. 2007), Bernard LUGAN, in referring to data from “Counting the victims of the genocide: an analysis of the results, Kigali, Republic of Rwanda, March 2001,” notes: “The authorities in Kigali came to different conclusions. For them, there were 1.1 million victims during the genocide, 1,074,017 to be exact. . . . But 93.7% of them were Tutsi, meaning 1.006,353 Tutsi were killed. This is DEMOGRAPHICALLY impossible.”]]]

{{{{And this is the point BAGOSORA is trying to make in his testimony here.}}}}

CUT TO:

INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY

ON: JdD sitting, referring to a screen—he’s watching the ICTR with BAGOSORA in the box.

He says: ‘Who is that anyway?’ [Like he doesn’t recognize the ‘brains of the genocide’]The interviewer tells him who it is, and JdD laughs about its being BAGOSORA.[What does this laughter mean?]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DAY[Though we are not told, this is 4 Feb 2002—The OTP v. Elizaphan and (his son) Gerard NTAKIRUTIMANA—IN SESSION]

[As this is a particularly important sequence of the documentary, where TWAGIRAMUNGU explains the significance of race and ethnicity—or lack thereof—in pre-genocide Rwanda, I was surprised when the filmmaker, in a brief conversation we had after the screening, didn’t seem to know that TWAGIRAMUNGU was the first PRIME MINISTER in the RPF government formed in July 1994. As founder of the MDR and in opposition to the HABYARIMANA/MRND government, TWAGIRAMUNGU was considered for the PM’s job in the broad-based transitional government set out in the Arusha Accords, but had to wait until {as the ever-objective Wikipedia puts it} the fall of the ’Hutu Power’ extremists. Yet here he is testifying for the Defense in the trial of a 78 year old Rwandan pastor and his Doctor son, who'd been snatched in Texas--probably what got them the able offices of Me Clark--and brought to Tanzania for trial on genocide charges.]

ON: PRIME MINISTER FAUSTIN TWAGIRAMUNGU in the box.

CUT BETWEEN:

ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK, leading the direct examination of TWAGIRAMUNGU for the Defense.

Me CLARK asks the PM why he is before the Tribunal.

TWAGIRAMUNGU says he is there to tell the truth so that justice can be done.

Me CLARK asks about the animosity or antagonism or tension between HUTU & TUTSI.

TWAGIRAMUNGU speaks of how the terms, used primarily by foreigners, have been weaponized for use by those who seek political domination. He says in 1991 his kids asked him if they were HUTU or TUTSI? He says there were NO ‘RACES’ in Rwanda.

[This kid-prosecutor seems threatened by the old man. He’s edgy and aggressive and generally acting like an asshole—Mose has to cool him off at one point. Not a great intro for the OTP.]

Prosecutor PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was aware of distinctions between HUTU AND TUTSI.

TWAGIRAMUNGU tries to answer, but PHILLIPS won’t let him.

[Pissing contest over terminology ensues.]

PHILLIPS bucks right on with a question about ID cards for HUTU/TUTSI being REQUIRED.

TWAGIRAMUNGU shoots back that IDs were NOT REQUIRED.

[Phillips is even more beaked by this.]

PHILLIPS jabs “Would you identify yourself as a Hutu?”—No answer.

[Don’t really know what he’s going for here.]

PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was THREATENED.

[One has to assume just who is doing the ‘threatening’ of whom here.]

TWAGIRAMUNGU closes the exchange with ‘Yeah, I was threatened BECAUSE I WAS IN THE OPPOSITION.’

[His party, the MDR, was in opposition to the Habyarimana/MRND government, but its leaders were also targeted for assassination by the RPF; so what threats is Phillips referring to? And the film never goes into TWAGIRAMUNGU’S history of serving, then fleeing the RPF, and going into exile in Belgium.]

CUT TO:

EXT. MEMORIAL—DAY

THEN CUT TO:

INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY

ON: JdD talking of the distinction between HUTU and TUTSI. He’s a HUTU married to a TUTSI, but considers himself BETWEEN HUTU & TUTSI.

[Remember he worked in the HUTU (majority) government and a lot of his colleagues in the civil service got tagged as HUTU genocidaires, however tall or aquiline-featured they may have been. To me, JdD looks like a Tutsi.]

CUT BACK TO:

EXT. PRISON—DAY

[This prison is becoming a STOCK SHOT for TODAY’s RWANDA]

THEN CUT TO:

INT. RWANDAN HOUSE—DAY

ON: JdD’s WIFE—[nice looking woman one would guess to be a Tutsi—she’s big.]

VO: Asks Mrs. JdD if she understands her husband’s arrest.

SHE speaks in KINYARWANDA and says she was surprised that he copped to being a genocidaire in front of a Gacaca.

[But Mrs JdD is A GACACA JUDGE!!—so, I guess, my first take on her being TUTSI was right.]

CUT TO:

EXT. KIGALI—VARIOUS ESTABLISHING SHOTS—DAY

ON: Kids playing FOOTBALL.

VO: GEORGES RUGGIU on RTLM quotes Machiavelli: [essentially: It’s easier to control people if they’re scared to death of being punished.]

[Or, TERROR WORKS! JUST ASK NATO or the MOSSAD.]

CUT TO:

EXT. ARUSHA STREETS—DAY

SFX: SIRENS

as we TRACK A UN MOTORCADE TO THE ICTR.

EXT. STOCK SHOTS OF ICTR—DAY

ON: SECURITY GUARDS checking with mirrors under the MOTORCADE for BOMBS.

[He’s actually in his 50s now, and in 2009 got a kick-out from some Italian joint within three months of finishing his 12 year bid, but in the movie bidness everybody’s a ‘kid’.]

—with a goofy Mennonite beard and a penchant for Muslim clobber, is doing working for RTLM. [HUTU-TU-TU-TU Hate Radio-yo-yo-yo!!]

GILISSEN talks about how young RUGGIU fell in with some very militant HUTUS from the north of Rwanda—this is HABYARIMANA’s region, and folks from up north are unusually political, according to Me GILISSEN’s story.

He fills in a little history of the troubles, . . .

[Though he lost me when he mentioned that in 1994 the RPF seized political power by force in a ‘CIVIL WAR’—again the Tribunal (and this film) avoid recognizing the PRIMAL CRIME AGAINST THE PEACE (according to the Nuremberg Principle—remember De Nuremberg à Nuremberg?), the crime that leads to all other war crimes, crimes against Humanity and even genocide: in the present case, the 1 October 1990 RPF invasion from Uganda (which the ICTR continues to refer to as a ‘TRESPASS’), prepared, supplied, supported and guided by the Anglo-Saxon powers and Israel, with the open, even brazen, connivance of the UN, against the current sado/maso peg-boy préféré, La France. Just when you thought Sarkozy could no further humiliate himself and his country, he visits Kigali and in the towering presence of the MASTER GENOCIDAIRE, President/General Paul Kagame, apologizes for ‘French errors’ during the Rwandan tragedy—hawking the last pitiful examples of Gallic military heroism for the rough caresses of his NATO overlords. –And the next day, the French arrest Mme HABYARIMANA, the martyred President’s widow, on a GENOCIDE WARRANT from KIGALI.—But then all of this is OUTSIDE the MANDATE or AUTHORITY of the ICTR, right?]

Me GILISSEN’s final anecdote is winning, however: HABYARIMANA’s motorcade is stopped by the sight of this WHITE BOY, RUGGIU, standing beside the road. The soon-to-be-late President invites the WHITE BOY into his car and so charms him that RUGGIU becomes totally committed . . .

[. . . to the NATIONAL CIVIL DEFENSE OF RWANDA AGAINST THE FOREIGN INVADERS—or to Extremist Hutu Hate Power Radio, depending on which side of history you favor: the true or the false.]

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON—RAINY DAY

ON: A bunch of GUYS IN JAIL-WHITES WAITING IN THE RAIN.

[Are we being shown the sort of place the little white Belgian RTLM DJ can expect to inhabit for a long spell?]

CUT TO:

INT. JdD’S HOUSE—DAY

ON: JdD, talking about the code used by RTLM: “cockroaches,” “cut down the tall trees”: it was all about killing . . . the enemy.

[But who is the ENEMY? Is it the TUTSI because they are TUTSI? Or is it the foreign invaders who have maintained a four-year reign of terror on the country and now threaten to end the RWANDAN REVOLUTION—or REPUBLIC—once and for all? The film does not mention that AGITATION FOR WAR was the normal fare on all the RADIO STATIONS, with the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA well in the LEAD.—But then, the ICTR is NOT ABOUT THE RPF, is it.]

[[[Here’s as good a place as any to INSERT a bit of history on the BOOGY MAN of HATE RADIO, RTLM (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines): This station was established in August 1993 (coincidental with the signing of the Arusha Accords) and broadcast on the FM band, reaching most of Kigali with a signal radius of less than 25km. It was created especially to react to the broadcasts of the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA, which, since 1990, used a short-wave signal emanating from the Army headquarters in the Burundian capital of Bujumbura to reach everywhere in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and the RDC. It ceaselessly aired lies and hateful messages through the plays of Idris BIZIRAGUTEBA, whose real name is Sillas MBONIMANA, and the songs of Cécile KAYIREBWA; this REAL HATE was directed at the HUTU, in general, and President HABYARIMANA, in particular.[2] ]]]

LONG HOLD ON: JdD, looking sad but still tranquil. We hear the RAIN FALLING hard outside.

AFTER SEVERAL LONG BEATS: JdD says, “It’s raining.”

CONTINUE HOLDING ON HIM FOR UNCOMFORTABLY LONG TIME.

CUT TO:

CLOSE ON: CUTE RWANDAN KID (4 yrs old) out in the rain. His face is covered with rainwater, but is as sad and tranquil as JdD’s.

BLACK OUT

VO: RTLM tells us it’s EASTER TIME and that ‘EXTREMIST HUTUS’ have infiltrated the RPF and are planning for SOMETHING BIG to happen around the 7-8 of April (1994).

[Here the film, once again, tips its supposedly objective hand revealing all its cards to be in favor of the RPF version of the 1994 events: HABYARIMANA WAS ASSASSINATED BY (infiltrated) HUTU POWER EXTREMISTs—even if it LOOKS LIKE the RPF did it!]

FADE IN:

EXT. HILLTOP OUTSIDE KIGALI—TWILIGHT

SFX: An aircraft flying over.

CUT TO:

INT. ROOM—DAY

ON: AFRICAN GUY WITH WHITE HAIR watching TV image of TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying as to how he told PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA about the President’s being killed.

[NO MENTION is made in the FILM of the sad facts that (a) the next day {7 April 1994} PM Agathe was, herself, murdered while in UN CUSTODY; and (b) at the END of MIL I, Colonel BAGOSORA would be convicted by the ICTR of her murder (called an ACT OF GENOCIDE based on an ORDER from the APPEALS CHAMBER in The Hague to ‘take JUDICIAL NOTICE’ of the genocide—i.e., to ACCEPT IT as A GIVEN without any need of legal VERIFICATION.), while being ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES OF PLANNING OR INTENT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE.]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DAY

ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying about the downing of the President’s plane. He says whoever shot down HABYARIMANA’s plane JUST WANTED TO TAKE POWER. But whoever shot it down MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.

[The film makes no attempt to place TWAGIRAMUNGU’s testimony in any distinct time-relation to the MILITARY I (BAGOSORA) trial. One comes away with the impression TWAGIRAMUNGU is talking about the 6 April 1994 terrorist attack DURING the MILITARY I trial in Defense of BAGOSORA et alia.]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL IN SESSION

ON: RUGGIU being questioned about the SHOOT DOWN, which was reported on RTLM.

He’s also questioned about LISTS kept at the RTLM studio. RUGGIU describes a blackboard with two columns of names: ONE for THOSE IN DANGER; the OTHER for the DEAD.

[The CHARGE OF GENOCIDE seems to depend very heavily on the EXISTENCE OF LISTS.]

MOSE asks RUGGIU what the purpose of the LISTS was. RUGGIU uses TWAGIRAMUNGU as an example of list ONE: someone who’s been THREATENED; and PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA as an example of list TWO: someone who’s been KILLED.

When asked why the two LISTS were necessary, RUGGIU says that it was necessary to DOUBLE CHECK reports because there was a great deal of bad information, rumors and disinformation.

[The impression was that this was another feckless attempt by MOSE and the TRIBUNAL to establish the existence of ‘GENOCIDE LISTS’—but RUGGIU held his mud.]

[[[MORE ON GENOCIDE LISTS—real and imagined: Another RPF mouthpiece and a contributor to “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” Alain VERHAAGEN, writes about the massacres of the Tutsi by the Interahamwe:

--“In setting up their hellish machine . . . lists of thousands of names of people to beexecuted were compiled and used to complete their project.”--

No one has ever seen these lists. Could VERHAAGEN produce them? On the other hand, there IS a list of 213 HUTU linked to the MRND, compiled by the RPF in 1993. After they had seized power in July 1994, this list was updated and made official by a presidential decree in November 1996, then again in February 2001. It was also extended to include more than 2000 people. There are other lists as well: the Rwandan report on Human Rights submitted to the Human Rights Committee in Geneva on 17 March 2009, speaks of 1,056,606 Gacaca dossiers; there is also a list of 93 names filed with Interpol; finally, one of 130,000 people being held in prisons or other places of incarceration. These lists are constantly updated and used by the ICTR to track ‘alleged HUTU criminals.’ Western governments also refer to these lists as criteria for refusing political asylum to HUTU refugees. Generally, there is no ‘PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE’ for anyone whose name appears on these lists.[3] ]]]

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON—DAY

VO: RTLM broadcast dated MARCH 1994: HOW PM AGATHE (from the MDR) HAD TO GO.

CUT TO:

INT. ROOM—DAY

ON: WHITE-HAIRED AFRICAN GUY. He talks about how SHOOTING DOWN THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE and MURDERING PM AGATHE were all about STOPPING THE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS FROM BEING PUT IN PLACE.

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DAY

ON: MOSE is musing about whether the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE falls within the MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL. He asks a member of the PROSECUTION to address the question of THE DOUBLE PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION vs. THE MANDATE OF THE ICTR.

ON: LONG-HAIRED PROSECUTOR: Seems to be saying that WHETHER THE CRIME FALLS WITHIN THE MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL is NOT AS RELEVANT to the issue of BRINGING A PROSECUTION AGAINST THOSE RESPONSIBLE as is THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF THE PROSECUTION’S GAINING A CONVICTION. And he posits that with 8 COMPETING THEORIES AS TO WHO DONE IT, there is NOT A GREAT LIKELIHOOD of getting a case to stick to ANYONE.

ON: Me CONSTANT: HE GOES OFF on the idea of !?!8 COMPETING THEORIES!?! of the SHOOT DOWN.

He moves on to cite a case in which the Defense asked for discovery of all the evidence the Prosecution had on the SHOOT DOWN. But all the OTP could come up with was the Hourigan Report—which finds that the RPF and its leader, Paul Kagame, are RESPONSIBLE for this ACT OF TERRORISM.

Then Me CONSTANT continues by citing ALISON DES FORGES to establish the universally accepted tenet that the RWANDAN GENOCIDE was TRIGGERED by the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE.

[[[Re: EIGHT THEORIES ON THE SHOOT DOWN: As far as I know, there are just two principal theories, with various snap-on parts—and only one has any evidentiary credibility:

1. Per the MUTSINZI REPORT {thoroughly debunked on the CM/P blog}: The Extremist Hutu-Power HABYARIMANA inner-circle and some disgruntled FAR officers got rid of their own leader, their Army Chief of Staff, and another duly-elected Hutu president, so they could get on with a genocide they’d been cooking up for anywhere from 4 to 34 years; or

2. Per the BRUGUIÈRE REPORT (with serious back-up from the Spanish court of Judge FERNANDO ANDREU MERELLES): The RPF invaders decapitated the Rwandan government, in a BRAZEN TERRORIST VIOLATION of the Internationally sanctioned ARUSHA ACCORDS to which they were signatory, to signal the renewal of hostilities in a final military push to take Kigali and SEIZE STATE POWER BY FORCE OF ARMS—the ONLY WAY they could have ascended to power with the miniscule popular support they had—and to avoid the democratic elections ordered by the Arusha Peace Process.

–If you put MUTSINZI and BRUGUIÈRE in a pit, after five minutes, the latter would walk out with the entrails of the former dripping from his jaws.]]]

VO: MOSE says something like, “Massacres started around 13-14 April, right? But HOUSES were being BURNED and there were KILLINGS before that.”

ON: MOSE to BAGOSORA: “How do you explain all the killing of TUTSIS?”

ON: BAGOSORA: These were more like ‘TARGETED KILLINGS’ than ‘SYSTEMATIC MASSACRES.’

CUT TO:

EXT. RWANDA—DAY

THEN ON: Mrs. JdD: In KINYARWANDA she describes how her FAMILY WAS KILLED.

THEN ON: JdD:

VO: “Did anyone ask you to KILL YOUR [Tutsi] WIFE?”

JdD: “No. But I was LUCKY.”

[Scene with LONG RTLM VO omitted]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DAY

MILITARY I TRIAL IN SESSION

ON: Me CONSTANT to BAGOSORA: “Did you ever ORDER the KILLING of ANYONE?”

BAGOSORA: “No.”

Me CONSTANT: “What do you CONSIDER to be the DIFFERENCE between GENOCIDE and EXCESSIVE KILLING?”

BAGOSORA: “There was no PLANNING, NO SYSTEMATIC KILLING. . . . And right after the SHOOT DOWN, there were only TARGETED KILLINGS.”

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DAY

NTAKIRUTIMANA TRIAL IN SESSION

ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK to PM TWAGIRAMUNGU: “Did the MRND or anyone in the Rwandan government PLAN A GENOCIDE?”

TWAGIRAMUNGU: Says he was well-connected, a made-guy in Rwandan politics, the leader of a major OPPOSITION PARTY, and he KNEW OF NO PLAN FOR GENOCIDE. He added that there had been MASS KILLINGS SINCE 1993.

It’s the 13th anniversary of the genocide—so, 2007 [Bruguière’s ARREST WARRANTS have been out for about 6 MONTHS]. And though they are never mentioned by name, you know Kagame is talking directly to the French and their ANTI-TERRORIST Judge Jean-Louis BRUGUIÈRE and his REPORT, which charges the Rwandan president with the murder of two SITTING African CHIEFS OF STATE and their entourages, including the three-man French flight crew of the presidential Falcon 50.

KAGAME: The genocide was CAUSED by FOREIGNERS [again the French are not named], so how dare THEY judge Rwanda? WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT ON THAT PLANE that it could have caused the deaths of a million Rwandans? WHAT RIGHT DO THESE FOREIGNERS have to judge Rwanda and its government?

[It is difficult not to hear his speech as a kind of ‘Fuck you, France {and Spain}! So what if I shot down the plane? Nothing on it that our world can’t get along just fine without.”]

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON—DAY

ON: PRISONERS making a HUGE KETTLE of some kind of SOUP or STEW. We spend a LONG TIME looking on at this NASTY CONCOCTION. The COOKS look especially DISGUSTED [But maybe it’s not about the GRUEL].

CUT TO:

INT. COURTROOM—DAY

VO: CARLA DEL PONTE speaking in French.

ON: CARLA DEL PONTE going on about the INDEPENDENCE OF THE ICTR PROSECUTOR.

She complains that the APPEALS CHAMBER kept her from pursuing [Jean-Bosco] BARIYAGWIZA. She said she couldn’t go to RWANDA after that and that the KIGALI government stopped her working, locked her out of her office.

[On first watching this scene, I was taken with how REASONABLE DEL PONTE seemed. As if she were talking about why she got FIRED FROM HER ICTR gig for GOING AFTER THE RPF. And how the RPF was denying her access to her office in Kigali and to evidence only they could furnish. It took finding out some details of the BARIYAGWIZA case to realize she was fronting for the RPF in complaining that the APPEALS CHAMBER had ruled FOR BARIYAGWIZA and AGAINST the RPF.]

CUT TO:

EXT. GACACA—DAY

JdD’s MISSUS is the smiling JUDGE.

VARIOUS SHOTS OF GACACA JUSTICE: their motto: ‘If you’re alive you’re a criminal.’

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON—DAY

ON: Trucking PRISONERS [AGAIN to WORK?]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL

BETWEEN: RUGGIU and the INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE

RUGGIU CHANGING his PLEA to GUILTY.

The JUDGE asks if he’s been COERCED OR TERRORIZED into changing his plea. Did THREATS have anything to do with his CHANGING HIS PLEA? [Duh!]

RUGGIU says: NO, the THREATS JUST CLEARED HIS MIND—and besides, HE was MISSING his FAMILY.

[He appears thoroughly demoralized and scared shitless. Being the only non-HUTU, non-African, might do that. The RPF scares everyone—until they kill them. Just ask Abdul RUZIBIZA, Deus KAGIRANEZA and Emmanuel RUZIGANA, recanting their testimony at KIGALI’s “REQUEST.”—or ask this filmmaker. It’s TOO LATE to ask Juvénal UWILINGIYIMANA: the RPF got to him using the current US Ambassador for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp—then they cut his hands off and dumped his body in the Charleroi Canal in Brussels. See http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/27/1523635.html]

CUT TO:

INT. JdD’s ROOM

ON: JdD listening in to the RUGGIU TRIAL on a COMPUTER.

[One gets the IMPRESSION JdD and RUGGIU are being COMPARED here: They seem a lot ALIKE in their DEHUMANIZATION.]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—VARIOUS SHOTS OF AN EMPTY TRIBUNAL

ON: RUGGIU’S ATTORNEY

He is PLEADING for a LENIENT SENTENCE for his CLIENT. [This is beyond PATHETIC: kinda ‘GENOCIDAIRES ARE PEOPLE TOO.’]

VARIOUS SHOTS OF EMPTY ICTR

ON: THE INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE PRONOUNCING RUGGIU’S SENTENCE.

Count 1—Genocide: 12 years. Count 2—Crimes against Humanity: 12 years.

[She runs them bow-legged—CC, you know, CONCURRENTLY. RUGGIU was sentence 1 June 2000. He did SEVEN of his DOZEN-YEARS in Arusha. On 28 February 2008, he was transferred to Italy where he stepped off the 17 months left of his time. He got a 3-month early kick-out in June 2009.]

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON—DAWN [or SUNSET]

ON: PRISONERS hooking it up on WORK DETAIL.

CUT TO:

ON: JdD’s MISSUS talking about how hard it was to explain to the kids that DAD’S A GENOCIDAIRE.

CUT TO:

ON: JdD explaining the DIFFERENCE between BEING GUILTY OF and BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR genocide.

JdD’s OK with ALL THIS because he’s VISITED THE SURVIVORS, HAD A DRINK WITH THEM.

CUT TO:

EXT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY

HOLD for SEVERAL BEATS. [We’re LEAVING RWANDA]

CUT TO:

INT. ICTR—DOOR BEING CLOSED TO CAMERA

ON: Me CONSTANT’s FINAL ARGUMENT for BAGOSORA:

The QUESTION of WHETHER the GENOCIDE is TRUE or NOT has BEEN FORGOTTEN.

WHAT HAPPENED IN RWANDA IS STILL UNKNOWN.

Citing DEL PONTE, he says the TRIBUNAL CANNOT WRITE THE HISTORY OF RWANDA.

WE’RE LISTENING FROM OFF:

Me CONSTANT says that whether BAGOSORA is a NICE GUY OR NOT is not the POINT.The TRIBUNAL has not proved that HE KILLED ANYONE.

FINALLY: CONSTANT says:

THIS IS NOT A TRIBUNAL OF THE VICTORS—THIS IS A TRIBUNAL OF THE VANQUISHED.

CUT TO:

EXT. RWANDA—DAY

ON: THE VERDICTS:

BAGOSORA gets LIFE JdD gets 30 YEARS.

[[[BUT WHERE IS ANY MENTION OF ALL OF THE AQUITTALS? OF THE ICTR’s COMPLETE FAILURE TO PROVE THE GENOCIDE!—Because, AFTER ALL, this FAILURE TO (un)MAKE HISTORY is what we’ve JUST WITNESSED.]]]

THE END

******************

Notes:

[1] Extracted from: The critique by Martine SYOEN, President of "SOS Rwanda-Burundi asbl", of certains writings from the book, "N'épargnez pas les enfants ! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité". [http://www.musabyimana.be/lire/article/critiques-au-livre-nepargnez-pas-les-enfants-memoire-dun-genocide-de-proximite/index.html#_edn6][2] This is again excerpted from the piece by Martine SYOEN cited above.[3] Ibid.

Monday, March 8, 2010

[Any hope for the future presupposes a general refusal by the People to remain in or return to slavery.

Here are images of the People of Greece and their response to the global crisis of waste capitalism.

But in the US? Can Americans break the mystical (yet ironclad) chains of superstition and propaganda that have been cinched-down on them by their waste culture and its craven, soulless media?

The country is currently blessed with a brilliant leader who is the descendant of slaves--American wage-slaves and Kenyan colonial subjects--his image alone should be a banner under which the American People march against the criminal speculators and other waste mongers that have degraded their nation and their daily lives to the point of no longer being humanly sustainable.

Before Capitalism can be converted into some sort of rational and decent social productive order, Capital must first be challenged, then controlled by the People.

A sort of Democracy (government of, by and for the 'demos,' really more republican than democratic, founded, as it was, on a rigid hierarchical class structure with abundant access to slave labor, but . . .) was long ago born in Greece.

So watch this video from the Greek Communist Party and look to emulate the spirit of the Greek workers--if we are to have any hopes for the rebirth of a real, popular democracy. --mc]

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

France Plumbs the Sub-Vichy Depths of Craven Betrayal--Lubelessly Sodomizing its own History

[Nicholas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner, two hope-to-die war-lovers (remember, Kouchner’s 2004 auto-bio is called ‘Les Guerriers Pour La Paix’ or ‘Warriors for Peace,’ and Sarkozy . . . is short.), have effectively completed the France’s unconditional surrender to the anti-democratic (read: Fascist) aggressors in the post-Soviet wars for globalized neo-liberal Waste-Capitalism, with their mortgaging of France’s international moral stature and political influence, its hard-earn reputation as a champion of democracy and Human Rights and as a force for Reason moved by Decency, to the junk-bondage-brokers at those misery exchanges, NATO, AFRICOM, the UN, and the US State & Defense Departments, for a seat at the rigged war game of African resource roulette.

And nothing better describes the current emptiness at the moral/spiritual core of France's national identity (what I like to call its 'Empty Burkah Syndrome') than the recent arrest--and near immediate release for lack of any substantive charge, but with an ever-looming prospect of extradition to Rwanda--of Mme Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of the martyred Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, on the accusation that she conspired to murder her husband as a way to launch her 'Little House' pet-project: the liquidation of Rwanda's Tutsi minority. Even the reprehensible Phillip Gourevitch's unspeakable colon must be spasing out behind this one.

For those who still doubt that the French were chief among the ‘friendly fire’ victims of these ‘Eastern Front wars’ (aka Humanitarian Interventions) against Russia and China in territories where those ‘popular’ or ‘collectivist’ states held considerable sway, like Yugoslavia and Rwanda, it might be a good time to take another look at Robin Philpot’s book on the bloody and ruthless Anglo-Saxon annexation of Rwanda—all of Central Africa, really—unto Congo: “Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard,” the English translation of his “Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali”[1].

—“The genocide in Rwanda was 100 percent the responsibility of the Americans!” Those are not the words of a political leader who has been marginalized like Robert Mugabe or a Fidel Castro. Nor are they the words of a nostalgic African activist bewailing the fall of the Soviet block. Former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali made that statement in July 1998, and he repeated it to me in November 2002. People in the White House liked to call Boutros-Ghali “Booboo Ghali”, or “Frenchie”, in preparation for and during his firing from the United Nations conducted by the then United States’ Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, who vetoed his re-election on November 19, 1996.—

Later in what was for me a seminal book on Africa, Philpot goes on do describe the plotting of Clinton’s first Secretary of State—and the former dairyman-mayor of San Francisco—Warren Christopher:

—In spring 1993, the United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher declared to the African-American Institute that “The people of Africa know where their future lies: not with corrupt dictators like Mobutu, but with courageous democrats in every part of the continent. From Senegal to Benin, from Madagascar to Mali, African nations are building strong democratic institutions.”

What was Warren Christopher’s real message? First, the United States was staking out the areas it targeted. These just happened to be all countries with close ties to France - note that every country mentioned is a member of the Francophone Summit. Secondly, Washington had decided that Mobutu, who had faithfully served the United States for thirty years as an anti-Communist strongman, was now on his way out, and that the Africans’ desire for change and their revolt against Mobutu would be used to advance American pawns in Africa.—

At this same time (i.e., the early 1990s), the same plan was in play with the private military invasions and commercial and financial occupation of what preemptively became known as ‘the former-Yugoslavia.” And Bernard Kouchner surely must have sensed the demoralization (or maybe not) of turning against France’s former allies in the heroic victories in the two Great Wars of the 20th Century, as he rubbed glands with devils like the UCK’s (KLA’s) Hakim Thaci and ‘the visibly demented’ NATO General Wesley Clark in celebration of the 78-day terror bombing of Serbia (still, at the time, known as Yugoslavia) for the amputation of its southern province of Kosovo. After having been elevated to ‘Viceroy’-status in Bosnia, and then Kosovo, by his Amis-requins idols, the French Dr. was completely cut out of the game when it came to divvying up the Monopoly booty of this decade-long US/UK/EU war on Europe.

Now Les Deux Nains d’Élysée were courtsying, hand-in-sweaty-little-hand, and lispingly begging for mo’ mayo as they slarved after the great Rwandan black-snake of ‘the world’s bloodiest war criminal since Hitler’ (to sample a rather hackneyed allusion from the article below). But maybe they weren’t hip to Kagame’s long-term intentions for his Ugandan- (read: NATO)-sponsored 1990 invasion of Rwanda—maybe it really was all about ‘stopping the fucking genocide’—the genocide that they were going to make sure happened four years thence, though it had been encoded in the neo-feudal Tutsi-revanchist mythology since 1959, when Kagame’s family lost their throne to a lot of Hutu rabble (read: UN-sanctioned majority rule).

What better way to become the hero who stopped the genocide than to be the asshole who started it in the first place—the one who refused all offers of ceasefire from the Rwandan government and the military he had targeted for elimination and then ordered all foreign troops out of the country so as to free his hand to displace as many Rwandans as he couldn’t exterminate.

And, bienfuckingsûr, France made some political errors, violated some of Kagame’s rules of terrorist enragement—like by coming to the aid of a ‘francophone’ Rwanda under foreign invasion in October 1990 (and repelling Kagame and his RPF/Ugandan NRA aggressors in thirty days), or by gaining UN approval for its Operation Turquoise and, at the height of the mass killings that resulted from the RPF’s final military push to take Kigali begun on 6 April 1994, ordering a small unit of its Armée into western Rwanda to guarantee safe passage into Congo for the tidal wave of refugees displaced by Kagame’s most heinous mass-crime against the Peace of his putative homeland.

But they could not have been ignorant of Kagame’s post genocide machination, when he was still using Hutu ‘beards’ in his first post-genocide government: like Pasteur Bizimungu as president and Faustin Twagiramungu as PM—guys whose careers were real short even by Hutu standards. Here’s a letter from Pilate Kagame to one of his Belgian ‘backers,’ written during that period of ‘peaceful coexistence between Hutu and Tutsi’ that permitted the New Rwanda to kick the ecumenical shit out of everybody in eastern Congo. I got this from my mainest lawyer, Chris Black, so I’d guess it must be lying around somewhere in the file room at Quai d’Orsay so S & K could get at it too:

We have the greatest honor to express our sincere gratitude for your financial and technical support to our struggle, which has just concluded with our taking the capital city of Kigali.

Be assured that our plan continues along the lines we discussed during our last meeting in Kampala. Last week I was in contact with our big brother, Yoweri Museveni, and decided to make some changes to our plan. In effect, as you noticed, the taking of Kigali quickly created a panic among the Hutus who hit the road for Goma and Bukavu. We found that the presence of a large number of Rwandan refugees in Goma, and especially from the International Community, could cause our plan for Zaire to fail. We can only take care of Zaire after the Hutus have been returned. Every means must be used to bring about this return as quickly as possible. At any rate, our foreign intelligence services continue to criss-cross Eastern Zaire, while our Belgian, British and American collaborators are covering the rest of the country. Their activity reports are expected in the next few days.

Concerning the Burundi Plan, we are very happy with your work to stymie the policies of FRODEBU [Front for Democracy in Burundi--nb]. We have to continue to neutralize the power of the FRODEBU until the whole situation putrefies so as to justify your actions which must not miss their mark. Our troops will be deployed, this time, not only in Bujumbura but in other places you think are strategic. Our forces stationed at Bugesera are ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. The plan for Burundi must be executed as soon as possible before the Hutus of Rwanda can reorganize.

Hoping to see you soon in Kigali, we hope you, dear brother, will accept our fondest greetings.

Rwegofor General Paul KagameRwandan Minister of Defense.

So when Sarkozy mentioned in his effete apology for French heroism that he had exerted his brand of courageous authority by refusing asylum of ‘a Rwandan {widow?} living in France,’ did he really think Kagame was going to break him off a high-five? Or was this just some sort of Napoleonic Business negotiation whereby the agents of the French Art-collecting class trade some poor African illegal immigrant for permission to join the global energy-resource shopping spree full-tilt-boogying in Congo—where the world’s riches rest uneasily under the world’s poorest.

But all that Congo uranium France seems to be trading President Habyarimana’s widow for is going to be even harder to chew and swallow with all the threats Sarkozy and Kouchner have been making to their Middle Eastern clients in Iran. And, as I’m sure the French magistrate told Mme Habyarimana as he cut her loose on the humbug Kigali genocide charges: It’s nothing personal, madam—just Business comme d’hab. –mc]

Sarkozy Trades President Habyarimana’s Widow for the Wealth of Congo(2 March 2010)

Less than a week after the French President’s visit to Kigali, the widow of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was arrested in Paris[2]. This gesture reinforces the sense that the reconciliation between France and Rwanda was not achieved to make one country look good in the eyes of the other, but rather so that France could get its slice of the Congo cake of which Kagame has lately been showing himself more and more to be the owner.

Possibility of extradition to Rwanda

The most troubling part of this arrest is the way the media has covered it. In fact, there is much that seems to suggest that Mme Habyarimana will be extradited to Rwanda. But, adjudication of genocide and its ancillary crimes remains in the purview of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which, let’s not forget, has never implicated the President’s widow in any crime whatsoever.

What’s more, until now no democracy worthy of the name has agreed to turn anyone over to a country (like Rwanda) where the justice system is independent in name only and where Human Rights don’t exist at all. And the ICTR has consistently refused to turn over any files or prisoners to its iniquities, despite the insistent demands of the Kigali regime.

Kigali want to buy back its virginity

General Kagame, current head of state in Rwanda, finding himself the principal suspect in the terrorist attack that took the life of his predecessor and triggered the genocide, has redoubled his efforts to buy back his political virginity and to disguise the role he played throughout the genocide that took the lives of nearly one million Rwandans. Even though he declared a while back on the BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ that he didn’t give a good goddam about Habyarimana’s death because he wasn’t one of his bodyguards, his chosen political strategy has led him to set up an investigation of this attack 16 years after the event.

The commission charged with conducting this inquiry was headed by Jean Mutsinzi, a close associate of Kagame’s and a founding member of the RPF, the politico-military movement suspected of having carried out the attack against President Habyarimana. Unlike all serious investigations (by the French judiciary, the Spanish judiciary, and the investigations and reports of the ICTR) that have been undertaken so far, the Mutsinzi Report “unequivocally” exonerates General Kagame’s regime and plunges to new depths of cynicism by accusing the President’s widow of complicity in her husband’s murder.

Planning the genocide is still on the table

Since its creation, the ICTR has searched tirelessly for evidence of planning by the Habyarimana regime for the genocide, but the reality continues to be that, after 15 years and more than a billion dollars, all roads lead to Kagame (just as in the investigations of Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles and French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière). The reason Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte was relieved of her duties at the ICTR was that she seriously displeased the Americans by becoming way too interested in the role played by Kagame in the genocide. And since the Tribunal has not succeeded in any way to prove that there was planning for the genocide on the part of President Habyarimana’s regime, and what with the reversal of the conviction of Mme Habyarimana’s brother by the Appeals Chamber and the ICTR’s acquittal of Colonel Bagosora, depicted by Kigali as the brains of the genocide, the crime of genocide and the intent to commit genocide have suffered serious set backs in Kigali’s version of the events and have brought forth great anger from Kagame. By demanding the French arrest and extradite Mme Habyarimana to Rwanda, Kagame is trying to make sure that she does not gain access to a fair trial (which would risk completely exonerating her, as well, especially since the ICTR has never implicated her in anything) and that she is condemned by a Rwandan court under his control for planning the genocide.

France genuflecting before a war criminal . . . begging for the wealth of Congo!

Since he came to power, General Kagame has incessantly used the genocide, despite the troubling role he played in it, as a sort of national epic to obscure and rationalize all the crimes he has committed against other Rwandans (especially the massacres of half a million Hutu refugees in Congo) and the people of Congo (more than 6 million dead and counting). Kagame used this same genocide to gain advantage over France, the only major power to intervene in the 1994 massacres and contribute to saving the lives of millions of the Rwandans Kagame would have preferred to liquidate. He reiterated this intention in a speech in Murambi on 6 April 2007, saying: “What hurts worst is when I think of all those millions of people who were able to flee the country without our punishing them.”

Similarly, since Kagame took power in Kigali and in Kinshasa, by imposing his puppet Kabila, France has little by little lost its presence and influence in a region that is acknowledged to be more and more strategically important to the economic growth of the world’s Great Powers. But this was before the arrival of Bernard Kouchner, close personal friend of Kagame’s, as French Minister of Foreign Affairs. Since then, Dr. Kouchner, always true to his code of ‘realpolitik,’ has done everything he can to bring about a rapprochement between presidents Sarkozy and Kagame, while never bringing up the crimes committed by the RPF commander.

It is abundantly clear that the reconciliation between France and Rwanda has no other justification than the return of France to the African Great Lakes region (and especially to Congo, where AREVA[3] has already garnered exclusive control over Congolese uranium) and its realignment with the disastrous policies of the US and England. It is sad to see a great nation like France fall so low, and its president shamelessly shaking the hand of the greatest war criminal since Hitler . . . just for the money. But with President Nicholas ‘bling-bling’ Sarkozy, we should expect no less!

Arthur Ngenzi/SaveRwanda[translated from the French by cm/p]

******************Notes:

[1] Found on Phil Taylor’s site at http://www.taylor-report.com/Rwanda_1994/

[2] At the time of this writing [11 pm Tuesday 2 March 2010] word has come to us from her son Léon that Mme Habyarimana has been freed by the French judiciary due to the lack substance in the charges from Kigali.

[3] AREVA, real name: Société des participations du Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, is a French industrial group specializing in the fields of energy. This company is present on the international scene with commercial networks in 43 countries.